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Unthinkable Think Think Unthinkable

(x = space)

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Unthinkable Think Think Unthinkable

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God help Lewiston

And Israel

And Ukraine

(and more

always more)

Settings for

What we’d like to think

Unthinkable

x

I care about

Don’t care about

The sides

I care about the living

Suffering

About the dead who died

Suffering

x

About the living

Who remain

To bend

In mourning

And those who rise

In fear

x

There is anger

War is angry

I imagine

Shooting someone else

Is angry

x

Anger the mask

For fear

Fear the mask

For sin

Maybe we could sin less

With our devices

And machines

Pick up each other

Donate

Through the screens

And if on site

Somehow

Watch out for each other

Get physically involved

(and also hide

when needed)

to hide)

Which can be dangerous

I know

Though everything

Might be endangered

Now

Or anytime

We do more

To resist the devil

Having released itself

Out of hell

Upon our world

x

C L Couch

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Photo by Napendra Singh on Unsplash

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Maggs

(x = space)

x

x

Maggs

x

Yesterday or recently

(depending on

the rate

at which cop blotters’

notes move on

to general news)

A boy

Who was 7

On a scooter

(child’s fit)

Treading the thing next

To his mother

Was hit by a truck

An NYPD

Tow truck

The driver on his cell phone

When it happened

x

This could be the news

Of the day

If we wanted things

This way

Then move on to pestilence

To wider crimes

To war

x

(sequel)

x

Is there more to say today

Beyond small tragedies

Small hopes

Perhaps

What happens if

Remediation

Anyone who seated at

Any round table

x

Good news

That’s strong and wide

And numerous

Throughout the world

We would talk about these

Too

x

(d.s. al coda)

x

There has to be the larger news

As well

That’s normal

Becoming all the media

In circles

I mean cycles

To see and hear

x

But sometimes

We keep it small

A fire here

Some thieving there

Small

Local tragedies

With ads surrounding

x

Maybe a fundraiser

For a smaller while

Highlighting

Human need

Addressed

x

It’s a mishmash

And

Yes

The larger

Overwhelms the smaller

(the whale that subsumes

the krill)

We might say

The way of the world

And who sets that way

The Earth

God

Or us

Or even us as

God’s

Program directors

x

Well

Signing off

Let’s find out

How things might be arranged

To settle heart and head

Into priorities

Of one day to the next

x

(now d.c.)

x

We must do the things

To do

Address the wicked

Heal the wounded

And remember

x

Remember Lewiston

Tree of Life

Parkland

Columbine

x

Elevate each spirit

In our minds

That has already gone to God

While our ongoing care

And remembrance

Go on

Here

x

And do we learn

Do we get better

Fuller

Sometimes

Sometimes it takes a trend

Some public outrage

Sometimes

Some public mourning

x

We can change

We can grow

What is the main thing

What are

Side things

Which is first

Then second

In our lives

x

How do we moralize

With wisdom

Restraint

Humbly working it out

As if about

To kneel

Before a divine

Committee

That keeps knocking

That keeps asking

x

(30)

x

C L Couch

x

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Photo by Mike Hindle on Unsplash

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1

First Frost

(x = space)

x

x

First Frost

x

1

Last night

x

It kills some things

Blankets others for the night

That is the final season

x

Nature knows

What we try to control

Knowing that relenting is

The final lesson

x

2

Ally ourselves

Withal

The nature of our lives

With the nature

Steadfast all around

Whose

Perturbations are

A part of all of it

x

Rhythms

Cycles

Seasons

Storms and quakes

Floods and eruptions

Take too many

Should have their own

Rhythms

Cycles

Seasons

x

Try to dance

Like skaters

Swimmers

Climbers

They all fall

And rise again

x

We could take care

Of all of us

This way

And let us grow

Into work as play

And play as work

(if we take in both parts)

Into retirement

What comes next after

Seed and bloom

Trunk and ever after

Life again

Life ever after

Goes the story

x

Join with the movement

Of the seasons

Of the spheres

While together

Work it out

For better times

Reasoned

Lives today

Living ahead

The generations of the forest

x

We are the forest

Too

x

C L Couch

x

x

(the briefest of bibliographies)

x

The Word for World Is Forest

Ursula K. Le Guin

x

Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving
To God the Creator triumphantly raise,
Who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
Who guideth us on to the end of our days.

Katherine Davis

x

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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Today in Washington, (a) District of Columbia

(x = space)

x

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Today in Washington, (a) District of Columbia

x

Huge aid

For Ukraine

And for Israel

Sits still in Congress

While Republicans

Look under seats

Wherever

For a

Speaker

x

While the

Democrat

Gets more votes

For candidates

If not

(but yet)

Procedure’s

Righteousness

x

Ironies

Within

The government’s three houses

While we wait

(who put them there)

For something

Most likely too partisan-extreme

To happen

x

C L Couch

x

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wars for many are not partisan but human and humanitarianism; save lives, feed people, fix their wounds; that’s a side perhaps but undivided by our race, our minds and hearts and spirits, all other differences aside; save lives, feed people, fix their wounds, our wounds—build a society, healed

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Photo by Alex Martinez on Unsplash

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Rising Seasons

(x = space)

x

x

Rising Seasons

x

I wasn’t counting

But there are vehicles that do

And they and their movers are

Confident

It will be another

Weekend of rain

Eighth in a row

Tomorrow

Saturday

And Sunday

And certainly

The sky just outside now

Is gray

The leaves are wet upon the ground

This time of day

It’s fall

x

It’s fall

We should expect some damp

Maybe in all seasons

But this is chill

Descends with leaves

Dissembling

That is

Dissolving

That we’d rather drive through

In sunlight

Brilliant light

And also dry

To pass through

All the colors

Dryly

Reclining

Divinely resting

Into winter

x

Our weekend sights

Set

For somewhere in New England

x

We want what we can’t have

Enough rain

To build the tables up

Again

Dry days and dry roads

For touring

And school

And time off

Simultaneously satisfied

As well

x

Well

Why not want things

There are always ponchos

And we need the rain

And schools have holidays

Sometimes

Sometimes that work

x

Then

Elsewhere

South of here

Or west

Or in another region

Of America

All Americas

Or in Africa

Or Europe

Far-flung Asia

The Pacific Rim

Or an extremity

Of white bears

Or the other

Where the penguins

In the photographs

Line civilly

Awaiting who is next

To slide into

Salt water

x

For you

In any of these regions

It must be so different

So wonderful and different

Where you are

And now

x

And maybe you will share

The weather and the climate

With those of us

Not there

But here

x

Meaning in the MidAtlantic

The Northeast

The Midwest

The Northwest

The northern South

And wide parts

Of Canada as well

x

Dry or damp

Let’s move

Adroitly on

All and any

All the pathways

That we have

Any of which

In any part

We hope

Might lead toward peace

x

As any of us might

Might wander

There and figure

In the sunshine

Or the rainshine

Depending on an attitude

A tolerance

Endurance

For the weather

Errant sunlight

Or the shade

For the interests they support

And for our own

About peacemaking

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Daniel Frank on Unsplash

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The USA President in Israel

(x = space)

x

x

The USA President in Israel

x

The President speaks in Israel,

There’s something popping with

Small flames

Outside the embassy;

He speaks mostly in support of Israel

Though he speaks to

Civil and civilian losses

On both sides,

All sides

x

Because there are sides

Having removed from each other

Because

There is a war

x

Hamas should not have done what it did

To start;

That was sinful

And stupid:

It was followed by

The deaths of many citizens

Around Hamas

(I mean geographically

and also

dis-strategically),

The destruction of homes

In Gaza,

Hospitals

And so many lives together

And the lives alone

x

The Israelis

Suffered

First,

Others underneath

Or beside

The missiles

And the bombs,

All the bullets fired;

And Israel responds with wrath

x

Hamas keeps fighting,

There is a war

x

Are there promised weapons

For Hamas?

Promised philosophy?

The codes–

The Jewish, Muslim–

Say

To love the neighbor,

Welcome the stranger,

Understand that creation

Is an act of love

x

The greatest power

Behind success of nations

As it is behind

The cosmos

And the reason

For the cosmos

x

On the devil’s table,

Looking one way or the other,

Is now a bullet-point,

A mark

For thoughts and plans

Of genocide

Believing that

We get rid

Of a people

Then all shall be well

x

And so the fighting

In this hellish hope

And demons’ cause;

They cheer infernally

x

It’s people

Not agendas

Killed:

The abstract, ersatz

Notions remain

Weaving a web

And also caught up in it,

An ouroboros

That consumes itself

To add a symbol

To the metaphor

x

We have nowhere else to go

Said Golda Meir to

Senator Biden

Some years ago,

And it is true

And also true

In fact and spirit

For many Palestinians

x

Both of us are there,

Both are home

x

How could diasporas

Be on the table, too?

x

What Hamas did

Was stupid

And sinful

Warfare on a quietish,

Tense day

Like any other there

And now there are fronts

Fighting also on mixed lines

With and beside the plans

x

People

Ununiformed

And uniformed

Suffering the most

On all sides

Of the weapons

x

There shall be an end,

Cessations maybe

Then the end

And what then shall happen?

Who shall win?

We think there shall be a winner

And with reason

But crazy to believe

Anything shall be resolved

For good

(for good)

In victory

x

The losers shall be punished

And might be promised

Through back doors

Into dark rooms

That nothing is over

When there shall be new campaigns

From promises

x

Cessation might

Overlay a mask of peace

That for relief

Might be suitable

For a while

x

I’m sorry,

I’m afraid,

We are afraid

Victimized by terror and by war

Who pray

Who petition for

Practical peace

x

Out of love that is not sweetness,

Well,

Is sweetness

But wears a skin of wounds

With scars

Still persists

Far more real than

We tend to think

Instead

Of worldly power

x

Please come to the right

Even righteous table

x

End the war

With tense

Satisfaction

Then go for peace for real

On this side of everyone’s

Parousial paradise

Ungained

Maybe blasted,

Might be apocalypsed

But not yet lost

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by ritesh singh on Unsplash

x

1

my favorite holiday

(x = space)

x

x

my favorite holiday

x

my favorite holiday

ever

I heard someone say

x

Christmas trees

x

or forlorn branches

in a Hallowe’en sky

x

triumphant Easter morning

whether or not

there’s sunlight

x

Groundhog Day

for fun

inside shadows

x

I don’t know

x

say

how about today

this day

for a holiday

x

for a holiday

a holy day

x

c l couch

x

x

photo by Clay LeConey on Unsplash

x

2

Tolkien paean (2 poems)

(x = space)

x

x

Tricksy

x

Not the wife of Norton

More like the creature

In the cave

On an island

In the lake

Who paddled

Throttled fish

Or goblins

And had one precious thing

That in the contest for it

He was sure

He had been hoodwinked

Of it

x

Which is an approach

To life

For some

To foresee and draft

A plan for taking

What’s desired

Or escape

Or something else from Earth

To own

Maybe to give away

The planet as a medium

For catch-and-release

x

Or an item

To pull out

From time to time

Like a jewel from the safe

Of one’s own

Righteous things

x

Something not to adjudicate

But to employ

When the thick is thin

And we in

The thick and thin of it

And this recourse will help

With or without

Preamble

Or an ongoing commentary

To say

Look at this clever thing I’m doing

It will save our bacon

Should we have any bacon

Either way

Quandary resolved

Some measure of escape

And I picked up something helpful

On the way out

Into daylight

x

The thief’s

The hero’s testimony

And we allow

What’s taken

As an exigent chapter

In the story

Of the quest

That passed under mountains

In the dark

x

x

x

Go Westmarch, Young Hobbit

(paean-ish)

x

Silly hobbit

Writing as if at Bree

In a room above

The raucous tributes

Below

x

Not in the study

Preparing contributions

To the read book

That is so important

It is red

x

But there is time

For twilight

And smoke rings

Beer and cake

Or something better

x

Maybe watch

For someone to come by

Whom we anticipate

Especially

When not there

x

And Middle-Earth goes by

And we ponder

Dancing steps

That might please Bombadil

While Goldberry

Marks the time

With other details

Of the party

x

x

Photo by T L on Unsplash

x

(title a corruption of advice by Horace Greeley)

x

x

x

C L Couch

x

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Sizable Gratitude for Small

(x = space)

x

x

Sizable Gratitude for Small

x

That’s it

I guess

I have something to share

Maybe kind of usual

For trope

If not cliché

I even mention weather

x

Well

I’m sipping

And I feel kind of easy

I know God is here

And maybe

My near angel

x

The hall is quiet

For a change

Our small humanity

Easy

Too

Or absent

x

I’m breathing easier

Might be the new

Medication

Or-and

The added rest

I got this morning

After waking up

The first time

x

I don’t know

I’m drinking water

When I cough

I hope that’s smart enough

Because I want

To feel grateful

For the smallest

Better changes

In this day

x

coda

x

And

Yes

I know

This is not the day

That others have the day

x

Wounded by so many

Things that wound

x

There’s even terror

Too much

In too many places

Great

Or small

Letting the first page show

The way

x

For our remembrance

Supplication

Specific

Book-driven

Petitioning

To love our neighbors

And ourselves

When either needs a dire prayer

For safety

And for healing

For reckoning

Still decency

Still

In the world

Great or

In spite of intimate abdications

The smaller things we lose

In wider things

x

As some have tried

Aberrantly

To move the world

Another way

In spite of natural paths

Natural gains and losses

We must expect

Along the way

x

Pray for the world

Frankly

Lord

That we snap-to like soldiers

Even minutely

x

Only immediately

Waking up

To start to change

The errors

In certain plans

To raise up

And take care of

Real need instead

x

C L Couch

x

x

Photo by Fleur on Unsplash

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